India's refusal to adopt the umpire DRS refusal is a blight on cricket

India’s continuing refusal to use the umpire decision review system (DRS) will encourage excessive and frivolous appealing during the four-Test series against Australia.

Worse, it promotes bad behaviour from cantankerous players who feel aggrieved or do not get their way.

Umpires have more trouble controlling matches because players lose faith in them when there is not the option of righting decisions which are shown by technology to be obviously wrong.

And to pour petrol on the fire, India has recalled the worst-behaved player in the world, Harbhajan Singh.

Apart from sheer bloody-mindedness, and the fact that a fading Sachin Tendulkar apparently doesnt like DRS, it remains impossible for Indian cricket boss N. Srinivasan to justify India's lone opposition to the system.

International Cricket Council analysis has found the DRS increases the accuracy of decision-making from 92 percent to 96 percent. But more importantly, players can't carry on about a decision they don't like because they can legitimately challenge.

There are two unsuccessful challenges allowed during each innings of a Test and one per innings in a 50-over match.This means if the players are serious about feeling wronged they must challenge or shut up and get on with the game.

This system is far from perfect, with two terrible leg before wicket decisions given in a recent Sydney one-day match against Sri Lanka once Australia's batting challenge had been used unsuccessfully.The system clearly needs improving and speeding up to prevent so many delays but the problem is not, as Srinivasan claims, the technology.

One of the biggest problems is the expense of features such as hotspot, which some overseas broadcasters refuse to pay for. If the ICC were serious about the DRS it would pay for the technology to make it uniform instead of leaving that to the broadcasters.

However, without India on board, the ICCs hands are tied. As Bolshy as Indian cricket has become in recent years with its fabulous wealth from television rights, no one has changed BCCI from the Board of Control for Cricket in India to bullies who Control Cricket Internationally quite like Srinivasan, the current president.

At the most recent ICC executive board meeting a fortnight ago, England's Giles Clarke proposed that the home side decide whether DRS would be used instead of the current mutual agreement between countries. While all of the so-called 10 Test-playing countries except India support DRS, none of the other presidents or chairmen dared to speak in support of Clarke once Srinivasan again made his opposition clear.

Srinivasan is driving a strange morality to save cricket from technology which improves the game when his own behaviour does not stand up to scrutiny.

As BCCI president and owner of IPL franchise the Chennai Super Kings, which cost his company, India Cements, $94 million, Srinivasan has an outrageous conflict of interest which would not be allowed in any properly run organisation.

YOU SAID WHAT

India may be the world's largest democracy but the BCCI is making sure those annoying principles do not extend to its cricket coverage.The BCCI controls the coverage so there will be no free speech, commentators who criticise are sacked.

Moreover, the BCCI is now running an extortion racket when it comes to television rights. Sky in the UK paid for the rights to cover England's tour of India late last year then was hit with a bill for another $300,000 for broadcast facilities.

Unlike the rest of the cricketing world, the BCCI apparently could not find broadcast boxes at its grounds so charges for corporate boxes. Commentators Ian Botham, David Gower et al did the commentary from England.

Sadly the ABC failed to pay for radio rights of the current tour so it will be one of the few Test series of India over the past two decades not broadcast by Aunty. Miffed that it missed out on our collective eight cents a day, the BCCI has taken the unprecedented step of refusing the voice of Australian cricket, Jim Maxwell, accreditation to do news reports.

After lobbying by Cricket Australia, the BCCI replied that Diamond Jim could attend as a VIP but would have to leave the ground if he wanted to do radio reports. Thanks but no thanks.NOT FIRST CLASS

Aaron Finch appears to have reinforced the notion that if a player does not have a reasonable first class background it is harder for him to progress.The Victorian has a first class average of under 30, averaging just 19 in seven Sheffield Shield matches last season and 11 in four games this summer.

His brilliant state one-day and Big Bash form earned the 26-year-old an extend run in Australia's Twenty20 and one-day teams but he managed a total of just 12 runs in three T20 games and averaged just 15 in seven one-dayers.

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